Date: Thu, 18 Apr 1996 12:34:17 -0400
From: "Dale F.Coye"
Subject: new word? disconnect (noun)
At a meeting held at the Carnegie Foundation last month, high-ranking
educators from around the country were convened to discuss the future of the
Foundation. Frank Newman, head of the Education Commission of the States
said we should address the many "disconnects" which characterize education,
for example disagreement over whether all children can learn at high levels.
A disconnect is apparently something that people are not at all in agreement
on, or on different wavelengths about. What amuses me about words like this
is that I suspect many people in the room had never heard it used like this,
but they immediately picked up on it and all started coming up with
disconnects of their own, relishing this neologism as if it were an exotic
condiment that made their idea tastier.